The Vendor of Sweets

R. K Narayan

Name : Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami

Born on : 10 October 1906 in Madras , India

Died on : 13 May 2001 ( age 94) in Chennai , Tamil Nadu , India

Occupation : Writer

Nationality : India

Notable Awards : Padma Vibhushan , Sahithya Akademi

Benson Medal

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Spouse: Rajam (She died of typhoid in 1939. Her death
affected him deeply and remained depressed for a long time)

Some other Books of the Author:

Novels: Swami and Friends –his first novel written in 1930

Bachelor Arts, The Dark Room, The English Teacher,

Mr. Sampath – The Printer of Malgudi ect.

Short Stories: Mulgudi Days, Under the Banyan Tree and

other Stories

Autobiography: My Days

The General Plot

i. Jagan is a vendor of sweets. He has a kitchen which make

sweets for sale.
ii. His wife had died ten years ago. He has a son of twenty
years.
iii. The son Mali is studying in College.

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 iv. A distance had developed between Jagan and Mali. They
find it difficult to communicate.
v. Mali refuses to continue his education. He wants to be a
writer.
vi. Mali fails to make a mark in the short story competition
and decides to go to America to learn the art of short
story writing.
vii. He steels money from Jagan and finds the passage to
U.S.
viii. Dismayed at the beginning Jagan turns Mali’s trip to his
credit.
ix. Mali comes back after three years with a woman. He has
brought a machine for writing stories. He wants Jagan to
invest in his industry.
x. Jagan has no faith in this venture as he has no faith in
Mali’s other actions and refuses.
xi. Mali’s relationship with Grace becomes distant.
xii. He becomes an aimless, dissolute life with his friends and
ends up in prison.
xiii. Jagan decides to find peace in withdrawing from the
householder’s life to a retreat.
xiv. He entrusts his cousin to look after the business and
leaves.
xv. It is not a withdrawal in the spiritual sense, for he cannot
overcome his attachment to worldly things.

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Themes of the Novel

 Clash of generations – old and young (father and son)

 Clash of cultures (The American and Indian / The East –
West conflict))
 Creativity vs. mechanization (writing as creativity and
writing as industry)
 Tradition vs. modernity
 The attitude to women and marriage
 Education
 Appearance and reality, Reality and fantasy
 Marriage